Jack O Connor
Saturday June 10
Leinster SHC Semi-Final
Wexford v Kilkenny, Wexford Park, 7pm - Sky Sports
It’s a long time since a Leinster hurling championship match has been as eagerly awaited as this one.
Wexford have been pinned beneath Kilkenny’s boot-heel in the province for a long time, but it looks like the Pikemen are ready to rise again.
Their victory over Kilkenny in Nowlan Park in the Allianz Hurling League Quarter-Final sent out a real statement.
They tore into the Cats without any fear, and bullied them physically as well as outsmarted them tactically.
The Wexford players will have gained tremendous confidence from the nature of that win, but recent history has taught us that no team does vengeance quite like Kilkenny.
They’ll be hugely fired up to go down to Wexford Park and lower Wexford’s colours in front of their own crowd, so the battle-lines couldn’t be more clearly drawn.
The sun is forecast to shine, and around 20,000 will be crammed into the stadium, so it should be an incredible atmosphere.
How both teams deal with that will be telling. Kilkenny stalwarts like TJ Reid, Richie Hogan, and Paul Murphy will relish it, but will their younger team-mates be cowed by it?
Wexford have always been a county that hurls most powerfully when they harness the emotion of their own supporters, but there’s a danger too that their players might be too wired up by the sense of occasion and not stick to the game-plan that you can be sure Davy Fitzgerald will have so carefully prepared.
They’re not used to performing with the burden of expectation on their shoulders either, and it would be interesting to see how they would react were Kilkenny to come flying out of the blocks and build up an early lead.
They seemed to surprise Kilkenny with their intensity in that League Quarter-Final, but the Cats will have their claws out from the very start tomorrow.
Wexford players and supporters following their Allianz Hurling League Quarter Final success against Kilkenny at Nowlan Park.
Wexford wing-back Diarmuid O’Keeffe told the Wexford People newspaper this week they’re full prepared for that scenario.
“I know the championship is different,” he said. “Kilkenny will come to Innovate Wexford Park with all guns blazing. It will be an unreal experience but one we will be ready for.
“This will be a formidable challenge for us. We are under no illusions, as the Kilkenny team of old is still there. Kilkenny never go away. They may be team building to some extent but given their record they are always a formidable force.”
By common consent, the current Kilkenny team simply isn’t as good as the side that won four in a row All-Irelands from 2006 to 2009, and even a level below the side that won two more Liam MacCarthy Cups in 2014 and 2015.
Just don’t expect Brian Cody to agree with you when you suggest his current group are one in transition without quite the same quality of some of their predecessors.
“It’s like as if we can’t survive without those players," says Cody. "But the challenge for every team is that players come and go and the players that we have with us now, it would be disrespectful to suggest they don’t have the same quality. I believe that they have.
“They have terrific qualities, the qualities that are needed for us to go ahead and be competitive, and that’s what we’ll be working with.
“We’ve been written off before and that’s fair enough. People can decide these things if they want to decide them. It doesn’t really matter.
“The preparation for the Championship has always been what’s been top of the agenda. There are no excuses, we know the challenge ahead and we know how strong Wexford are.
"We know the way they’ve been playing and we know they were too strong for us the last day.”
Brian Cody
Being underestimated is grist to Kilkenny’s mill and you can be sure they’ll be out to prove a point tomorrow.
The first box they’ll have to tick is to cope better with Wexford’s sweeper system than they did in the league quarter-final.
Shaun Murphy excelled as the spare man in defence that day, both in terms of the amount of ball he won and the clever way he used it.
It’ll be interesting to see if Cody goes against his usual grain by mirroring the Wexford sweeper system with one of his own, or whether he’ll simply demand his forwards work harder than they did in the League.
If players like TJ Reid, Richie Hogan, and Walter Walsh can beat their men and win clean ball in the half-forward line, then the sweeper will be taken out of the equation to a large extent.
We still don’t know how either team will line out and that could yet be a decisive factor too. Kilkenny don’t normally delay naming their team, but the fact that they are this time suggests at least one player will require a late fitness test.
If Michael Fennelly, Padraig Walsh and Ger Aylward are all in good enough shape to play it will be a massive boon for the Cats, while Wexford will hope that Jack O’Connor will be fit for selection.
If Kilkenny can match Wexford’s intensity, then they’ll be confident that the class of players like TJ Reid and Richie Hogan will make the vital difference.
But Wexford are more than just hard-workers, they too have game-breakers like Conor McDonald and Lee Chin and arguably a stronger bench that Kilkenny.
Whatever way you dice it, this match has all the ingredients to be a battle-royale that lives up to its billing.
